Monthly Archive for February, 2011

Shooting brake

Published on February 25, 2011 in BMW, Ferrari and Shooting Brake. Closed

Ah, the time honoured tradition of the shooting brake.  My most recent favourite of that particular genre of cars was the BMW Z3 “Breadvan”.  I love these yokes:

Now there’s a new kid in town, and it’s not from one of the traditional haven of shooting brakes, England, but instead it comes to us from Italy.  Ferrari’s newest is a four wheel drive, four seater shooting brake.  Loving it.
Turn up your speakers:

An example of unsustainable transport

Published on February 25, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed

I’m only putting this up as an example of unsustainable transport you understand.  4 x 4 Ferrari anyone?  Wonder when we’ll see the first one of these on the school run? 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkYzxSW5hn4?rel=0&w=480&h=300]

Turn up your speakers to hear what CO2 sounds like.

Food miles

Published on February 21, 2011 in Economy, Food, Humour and Sustainability. Closed Tags: , , .

So, thanks to the global economy and modern refrigeration and transportation methods we can enjoy all sorts of different foods here in Ireland which we previously barely knew existed.  Take this for example:

Consider if you will the following facts:

Surface area of the Earth:  510,072,000 km2 of which 148,940,000 km2 is land.  But how far does Santa have to travel each year to deliver all his presents to all children on earth?  The best reported figure was found by by Keld Helsgaun using a variant of his LKH heuristic algorithm. His tour of length 7,515,947,511 meters was found on November 27, 2008.  This equates to 7,515,948 km’s.

Male Reindeer can live to over 10 years, but let’s assume 10 years for the purpose of the exercise. 

Let’s assume that Rudolf was at least 3 years old when he took up his position at the head of Santa’s sleigh and continued in that role until he expired, so a total of 7 years.  That means that he has traveled approx. 52,611,633 km’s in the employ of Santa.

Furthermore, let’s assume for arguments sake that a Reindeer covers 500 km in it’s migration from winter to summer lands and a further 500 km back again.  As Rudolf only flies for Santa on one night a year, it is reasonable to assume that for the other 364 days of the year he would follow the normal pattern of Reindeer.  That’s an annual distance of 1,000 km’s for 10 years, so that’s 10,000 km’s

These are just the big ticket items in the typical life of a Reindeer.  Now add the distance of his migratory journeys to the distance he covers on Christmas every year and then also add in the distance from Lapland to Ireland (Dublin to be precise), approx. 3000 km’s, and you come up with a grand total of 52,624,633 km travelled by that meat before it ended up in the shop in which I bought it.  Now that’s serious food miles.

But let’s be serious for a moment.  I make an effort to look out for and where possible to buy Irish sourced meat and vegetables when we go to the supermarket.  But most of the fruit that I buy has come from afar, as has some of the meat, and has covered a not insignificant amount of mileage in order to get here.  By supporting local farmers and markets we can get top quality produce here in Ireland but we may possibly have to sacrifice some variety.  Some of the variety penalty we would have to suffer could be subsequently made up if Irish farmers and food producers see that there is a market and demand for Irish produced goods.  We’re also supporting a local industry which has been in decline for a number of reasons (some of which we need to look to the EU as a reason for).   There is much talk in the media about a new breed of educated Irish farmer which I think we need to give a chance to and who can help us to utilize our country’s land better and more sustainably.

Cloughjordan Ecovillage field trip

Published on February 19, 2011 in Sustainability. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .
A very enjoyable and interesting trip today to the Cloughjordan Ecovillage.  The Ecovillage was founded on three core principles:
Building
Sustainability
Community
It has been set-up as an educational charity and lies on approx. 66 acres of land behind the main street in Cloughjordan.  They have a community farm, following the community supported agricultural model, which consists of approx. 12 acres on site and a further 25 acres nearby.  The residents of the village are also seeking to implement Permaculture principles as a guide to how they design their community.
From their own website - “Ecovillages are urban or rural communities of people who strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low impact way of life”.  Some of the more noticeable examples of this are the many different alternative methods and materials being employed by the residents in building their houses. Where I was expecting to see solar panels featuring prominently on roofs, and wind turbines etc., I was pleasantly surprised to see that the residents were striving to get the building fabric and envelope right before installing complex systems that often don’t deliver what is expected or touted by the marketing blurb on them. 
In fact so little real data exists in Ireland in relation to building performance of the methods being employed in Cloughjordan and the effect of renewable energy technologies on energy consumption it’s great to hear that the people in Cloughjordan are gathering significant amounts of data through various monitoring and measurement systems. 
The materials being employed whilst initially appearing to be low tech (and they are), are actually generally meeting the requirements more than adequately and are also avoiding the high embodied CO2 associated with traditional building methods.  It must however be noted that these materials and construction methods mean that it is almost impossible to build a house which attains an A rating under the Irish BER scheme.  Which is not such a bad thing in my opinion as the scheme, whilst certainly a step in the right direction, leaves an awful lot to be desired in it’s application in terms of assessing & rating a house.
I also found their district heating system very interesting – it’s great to see this idea, which has gained significant acceptance in many other countries throughout Europe, being used in Ireland.  Is it a concept that will gain wider acceptance in Ireland?  As a nation we appear to have an incredible aversion to having shared services as if that indicated some sort of deficiency on the homeowner’s part – Ireland’s Famine mentality still raising it’s head perhaps?  Will that kind of mentality limit the wider implementation of sustainable methods for living here in Ireland?
 Anyway, enjoy the pictures:

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

Published on February 9, 2011 in Humour. Closed

As you study for exams, remember its not the quantity it’s the quality. And remember there is no substitute for pure unadulterated bull

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, “why do airplanes fly?” on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof.”

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

“First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

  1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
  2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, “that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you” and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true…Thus, hell is exothermic.”

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.